


know if I held it in my hand

by ecotone



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tres Horny Girls, Candlenights, F/F, Roleswap, sword lesbian lucretia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 20:14:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12140256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecotone/pseuds/ecotone
Summary: A Candlenights less familiar than it should be.





	know if I held it in my hand

“So, uh,” Lup says, one hand on her hip, “Happy Candlenights, I guess? We did, like, sort of _just_ start getting to know each other, but I didn’t really want to be the only one who showed up without anything- no use getting blacklisted from the holiday party, y’know?” 

“Oh, thank you,” Lucretia replies, resisting another strong urge to sink into the floor. The Captain’s office is crowded, the great ornamented tree in the center of the room throwing multicolored light onto the floor. She’s gotten three gifts already, and they’re all leagues better than her own portraits and landscapes and nervous envelopes full of gold. Julia had run reconnaissance for her earlier in the month, asking everyone what they’d like, but the nervous expectation is still giving her a headache. “Happy Candlenights.” 

For some reason, Lup’s painting had been the most difficult: a portrait of the three of them, Lup in the middle. Even after two hours of revision, she hadn’t been able to get the background right. It looked blurred, like her paint was running, like there were other people behind them. Killian and Carey couldn’t see it, though, and Avi told her nothing was there, so she left it alone. If Lup thought it looked strange, she didn’t mention it. 

“Here you go. Thanks for the painting, by the way.” Lup unceremoniously swings a bag towards her, tissue paper rustling. Lucretia takes it, digs through until she grabs- 

A sword. 

“I know you’re protection-based,” Lup starts, smile on her face wavering ever so slightly, because this looks less like a present and more like a death threat, “but when we were at Goldcliff you did mention, uh, having something non-magical on hand, just in case? And I figured hey, we probably need someone else who can actually, you know, hit stuff without magic. And a healer, but I couldn’t find a healing sword.” 

“I don’t think a healing sword exists.” Lucretia laughs, looks down at her gift. She’ll have to ask Carey for some tips, or maybe Killian, or even Julia with her one-handed axe. “Thank you for this- and thanks for remembering, too. I’d forgotten I’d said anything about it.” 

“No problem, ‘Creesh.” Lup grins, runs a hand through her hair. “Now, you want to get drunk and go caroling?” 

“Absolutely not,” Lucretia says, even though she’s smiling too wide for her answer to be anything but yes. “We are professionals, you know. Even if we don’t act like it.” 

“We’re on the moon! Professionalism doesn’t exist on the moon.” 

Julia approaches from the snack table armed with with three glasses of wine, Candlenights Santa hat pulled low over her eyes. “Happy Candlenights,” she says, swaying along to the music that has too much bass to be anything holiday-related. “Hope you liked my presents! If you didn’t, I’ll take ‘em back. No shame in regifting.” 

“Your presents were great, Jules,” Lup offers, grabbing two of the glasses, “way better than socks.” She hands the other glass to Lucretia, who shuffles her things back into her giftbag. Sword, book, mixtape, whetstone, sword… 

And the headache, again. 

“Yes, your present was great,” Lucretia says, finally taking the glass. Lup looks at her strangely, hair in her eyes, and Lucretia shakes her head, tries for another smile instead of whatever grimace she’s currently wearing. “You’re teaching Killian how to weld, now, aren’t you?” 

Julia laughs. “Oh, you know it! She’s way better than I was when I was first learning, but I was like ten, you know, so-” 

The night continues normally, until the Captain gets a call and the three of them are jerked violently from the festivities. The next five hours are full of crystals, swords, and ghosts. 

“ _Davenport_ ,” Lup mutters, after the Stone is recovered and they’re all taking Upsy back to the Bureau, half-asleep. She opens one eye and grins. “Captain Davenport. Cap’nport?” 

Lucretia snorts, trying her best to nap without touching the elevator walls, even though her helmet’s still on. “Oh, he’ll love that.” 

“I think he might,” Julia says, yawning. The elevator door opens, and with it comes another hour of debriefing and questions and answers. Lucretia offers up the Stone, and after another meeting with the Captain they’re allowed to sleep, finally. 

Instead, Lucretia sits on her bed at six-thirty in the morning and watches the sunrise, sword in her lap. She’d had no time to use it last night- she’d used up every spell slot she had on barriers, and a few more on the reaper- but it still hung at her side, humming faintly through her nullsuit. 

It’s the first time she’s been able to really look at it, so she does. It’s long and thin, silver, and more elegant than something made for stabbing should be. The blade itself is inscribed, but when she tries to read it- nothing.

Maybe it isn’t inscribed after all, she thinks. She’s probably just thinking about the engraving, two little skeletons facing each other. She lays back with her sword in her lap, watches the sun, and forgets. 

 

“Hey,” Lup says, grinning. She’s laying on the floor, cloak half under her, going through her steadily-growing collection of Candlenights cards. They haven’t had a tree in years, not after the Accident in Cycle 33, but everyone’s still cheery.

“Yeah?” Lucretia asks, not quite looking up from her spot on the bed. There’s a journal in her lap that she’s flipping through; another, neater one sits next to her. The planet they’re currently on is abandoned, and the Light’s nearby, so she’s been working all year to rewrite her earliest logs, to add annotations and details and cross-references. 

Lup rolls onto her stomach, the ends of her pajama bottoms bunching around her knees. “It’s Candlenights,” she says, sing-song. “You know what that means!” 

“We all exchanged gifts earlier.” Lucretia sticks her head over the side of the bed, looks down at Lup. “And if you’re talking about lighting up another tree-” 

“No trees,” Lup says quickly, although it’s probably less shame and more the fact that they’re in a desert. “Presents, because I’m the best and everyone loves me.” She scrambles underneath the bed, unearths a long box covered in tinfoil. “Got it last year, although we left before I could get it wrapped like a civilized person.” She sticks her tongue out and passes the box up, keeping it carefully horizontal. 

Lucretia smiles, because the twins are uncannily accurate when it comes to gifts- even Taako, whose main method is just cooking up something and passing it out. The tinfoil is probably his, so she folds it up, reminds herself to see if he’ll want to transmute it or just let Lup set it on fire. 

“Thank you,” she says, even before she sees what’s in the box. Lup sits up, swats at her hand. 

“Look at it first,” she replies. “Then shower me in praise.” 

She opens it. It’s a rapier, she realizes, long and thin and silver. Twelve thin circles run the length of the hilt, intersecting and connecting into one long chain, each the color of one of the planes. There are two tiny skeletons engraved near the base of the blade, and below that, in looping cursive: _IPRE’s back, baby!_

Lucretia laughs, sets the box and sword aside so she can join Lup on the carpet. “Thank you,” she says again, “for real this time. Here is your praise shower.” 

Lup stretches her arms over her head, grin big and lazy. “You’re welcome,” she says. “I figured after the Judges, you deserved something other than magic to defend yourself with, you know? And that blacksmith on Idle’a was _really cool_ , so-” she shrugs. “Thought it’d be nice.” 

“It is nice.” She lays back on the carpet, hears Lup moving to lay next to her. The comms buzz on, and through them she can hear the others singing and laughing and yelling. “Want to go join them?” Lucretia asks, because they have a million years ahead of them, but Candlenights is fleeting, even here among the stars. 

“There’s always next year,” Lup says. “Besides, I’m starting to like the quiet.”

**Author's Note:**

> this probably didn't have to be a roleswap, but i love that 'i don't remember you' content, so here we are. 
> 
> also: lucretia's a mage, not a wizard, because blade mages (specifically mystical bulwark blade mages) exist. they're cool. 
> 
> thank you for reading! comments appreciated, as always. <3


End file.
